astralis

dalem,

because we're no longer living in the late 1700s, and modern-day iraq is not enlightenment-era america. global consequences as a result of gov't failure come a lot faster.

a "whiskey rebellion" with AK-47s, RPGs, IEDs, and VBIEDs won't be so easily crushed by an iraqi george washington (not that he exists that we've seen) with a few thousand militia-men.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Dreadnought

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Army Staff Sgt. Antonio Gonzales points his weapon across the Tigris River, keeping a close eye on a bridge that was cracked in half by an insurgent attack a few months ago.

He's 31 and on his second tour in Iraq. His survival and that of the men he serves with rely on an instinctive ability to spot hidden threats. A pile of trash, an odd formation of wires, a cart seemingly left innocently by the side of the road -- all could mean death.

"If you don't come out here, then you really have no clue," says Gonzales, a member of Task Force Justice, which is operating in northern Baghdad. "They don't understand what it is [like] driving down the road and to wonder if you are going to get blown up or not."

Gonzales and soldiers like him across Iraq must continue the day-to-day duties even as debate back home intensifies about the 160,000-plus U.S. forces in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, testified before Congress Monday that the "surge" has improved security and that some U.S. troops could begin leaving Iraq by the end of the year.

Petraeus would not speculate on force reductions beyond next summer.

President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January as part of a campaign to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces and stabilize the Iraqi government.

According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, 63 percent of Americans surveyed continue to oppose the war. However, a slight majority, 52 percent, believes that it is necessary to keep troops in Iraq in order to prevent additional acts of terrorism in the United States.


Live from Iraq
While politicians and the White House debate the war, Anderson Cooper is in Iraq, keeping them honest.
All this week, 10 p.m. ET

see full schedule »
Back in Iraq, there's no access to the news for the troops at the heart of the surge, but the soldiers are fully aware of the political debate and the sentiment back home. The troops long to be back in the States. But if that's not going to happen, they really wish the politicos would take a tour with them, deep in the trenches of war.

"As you can see, we don't have palaces as some of our national leadership likes to make out that we have," says Army Staff Sgt. David Julian as he scans a room crammed wall-to-wall with cots where some soldiers try and catch sleep and others joke with each other. Watch what soldiers have to say in the trenches »

Staff Sgt. Harry Thomas Morgan, on his third tour of duty, says, "It is my personal belief that if you are in a leadership position from senator to president, you should have to come here and live with the soldiers on the ground, not necessarily in the 'Green Zone' where we have the most luxuries.

"America needs to see what we see through the eyes of the soldier."

Morgan and Julian are part of Delta Company, 1-64 Armor, the last of the surge battalions to arrive in the capital.

The sacrifices these men and women in uniform go through are many -- from families left behind to those who paid the ultimate price. They fight for a better future for Iraq and to bring each other home. They say the bond between the soldiers is what helps them make it through each day.

There are those who are so war weary they just want to forget Iraq, and others who fear that failure in Iraq will mean all the lives lost were for naught. It's also hard for them to describe what they do, even when trying to explain it to family.

Well Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Biden, etc etc etc? Care to take a trip and spend a few weeks living reality instead of foolhearted speculation? I thought not! So just sit there and shut the **** up when you dont do your homework and make assnine alligations.

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

astralis

dreadnought,

sounds like an awfully good prescription for those certain politicians whom got us in our current bind in the first place, yes? only i'm thinking of the types whom believed that it would be a cakewalk, and that having several hundred thousand troops was way off, or that the insurgency was in its last throes...

Bluesman

You know, you seem to think it's all so dam' easy, putting together, in only three years, the perfection and competence and problem-solving that NO society EVER has been able to achieve, let alone while beset by all that Iraq has to deal with.

You have no sense of perspective, chief, NONE. You are simply not dealing with any concept of the reality of what it is that you are demanding that the GoI live up to, and I may have to revise my opinion of your intellect. Can you get your head around this ONE CONCEPT: perfection cannot come overnight to a nation riven by factionalism, neighboring states that pose a deadly menace, a rotten infrastructure that has been robbed blind by a thug mis-rule for 35 years, AND the constant attack of half-wits that think it should've all been running like a German train schedule a year ago? DO you GET any of that?

Here's a concept: stop investing your ego, time, and intellect in FAILURE, and get on-side so you can do something semi-constructive? HUH? Think MAYBE you could try some positve mental attitude for ONCE, stop being an Internet Message Board gadfly and see if you can do just a LITTLE good for the Cause?

Or would you rather be right?

Disgusting. On a day like this, I wish you could be something better than just another loser trying as hard as you can to make ALL of us lose. Go away.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Bluesman

Maybe while you post up your snide, sniffy rejoinder, given the subject matter, you could take that smirky smilie off, whatcha think? I don't think we're really in the mood for that sort of a 'joke'.

Dreadnought

Astralis,
How is it that people seem to forget a certain "Slick Willy's" hand in what was bequeved to the Bush Adminstration. So quickly they seem to forget the former Democratic President but yet many do not. And people wonder why people like me say that Hilliary dont stand a snowballs chance in hell of ever becoming President.

Bluesman

Absolutely correct, a few thousand militiamen will NOT do.

Perhaps 130,000+ of the finest troops in the world equipped with the best gear and trained in the best methodology will be needed. Are you now in FAVOR of American military involvement in Iraq? Because that's what we've been trying to get you to see for awhile: militiamen won't do it against this enemy, we're going to have to help.

Glad you agree.

astralis

bluesman,

is that right? how about this: many of the failures staring at us in the face was because of poor decision-making from washington, born from politically-motivated decisions on both sides of the aisle. yes, iraq is riven with problems a-plenty; it is too damn bad these problems were ignored. now that they are metastazing in our face, it is time to come up with creative solutions. our solution right now, as outlined by the very architect of said solution, has a 10% chance of success.

and you are criticizing me for wanting to come up with a different method of solving a difficult problem.

let me see here:

Hirsh: Rating Petraeus’s Report to the Hill - Newsweek Michael Hirsh - MSNBC.com

"NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus."

i see, so is Adm. Fallon investing in failure? are the architects of this working group also investing in failure? there is something to be said for a positive mental attitude, which is why i support petraeus 110% of the way, but i wasn't aware that remarking on weaknesses of the current effort (an over-dependence, IMO, of a bunch of sectarian thugs in suits) makes me a gadfly whom weakens the cause.

sounds good to me, chief.

"My favorite moment HAD to be the microphone debacle that so enraged Skelton that he can be heard (on other mikes that happened to be working...because they were privately-owned, not government property) swearing. Wait, that's not the punch line. The mike fiasco came immediately after one Democrat after another was pronouncing the Iraqi government incompetent, can't do anything right, total confusion, etc. etc.



Comedy GOLD, people."

you know, because we can seriously compare a microphone mistake to the incompetency and the sectarian hoodlum-ism that is the GOI.

astralis

bluesman,

in case you missed the 20th time i've said this,

i was in support of it all along and i am in support of it now. find one post where i have ever said otherwise.

Bluesman

And with that, here's today's Daily Democratic War-Losing Measure, brought to you by Hugh Hewitt:

THIS a Democratic Party LEADER.

Do you disagree with me? Do you believe Democrats are loyal Americans? Do you believe they are patriots, out to do the best they can for the country?

Then take me on. Some have tried in this thread, and my answer is to provide daily examples of why they're WRONG.

Democrats are disgusting in what they say, do, and aspire to, as regards to this country, and I'll sit by and watch not one moment longer. They are in a real sense, the enemy. I loathe a Democrat like I despise a terrorist, a drug dealer, a child molester or an appeaser of a foreign enemy, ALL of whom are the natural allies of the Democratic Party.

I simply do not see how ANY honorable, informed person can support what they stand for.

Now then - tell me why I'm wrong.

In the meantime, I'll be getting ready to post tomorrow's Daily Democratic War-Losing Measure.

astralis

anyhow,

petraeus has said this morning that if by march 2008 things have not improved, he would be hard-pressed to recommend continuing the surge. time will tell if there is an improvement. i hope to god there is.

but if not, what is going to happen? adm. fallon and the internal body of pentagon experts, most likely, will start working over-time on this set of alternate plans, and with any luck it will NOT be an investment in failure.

Bluesman

Yeah - because you're just so hot for victory.

dalem

I see your points, but there is a difference between concern and panic. It'll probably take 5 or 10 years, if ever, for the Iraqi government to stabilize, in my opinion. I don't get that worked up about it.

-dale

dalem

I don't know whether to guffaw or vomit upon reading that.

-dale

Dreadnought

Wasnt too crazy about a few particular lines myself but how can you have the good without the bad as well.